 Large Stone Cameo Of Highest Quality (8541)
. Stone cameos are so much more difficult to carve than shell cameos, that they are often quite crude. This was made by a master carver, most likely in Italy. The handle is American, and the shaft is snake wood. Circa 1880's.
The family of stones that this comes from is Chalcedony, or opaque quartz. A hardness of 7 on a 1 to 10, it holds up well in any application. Onyxes, sardonic, agate, carnelian all have the same chemical makeup. Banded agate has different color layers and stone cameos are carved from one layer to another, in the other direction, giving two colors, some have three. I have seen some cameos with the top layer glued on, but that is not the correct way to do it, and would not have the same value. I have also seen a lot of stone cameo's with broken noses on the carved ladies.
Don't buy damaged cameo's, and don't buy damaged canes. If something is wrong, down goes the price.
Let's go from stones to gold. This information will be helpful, if you buy jewelry. The only stones that can be worked on in the mounting are diamonds, rubies, and Safire’s. All the rest can't take heat. That is important, because if you buy something that needs to be fixed, it can't be fixed with out removing it from the setting or the cane handle. This increases the risk of damaging the stone. Using heat to repair a handle, is impossible, on the shaft. Handles are put on with several methods, but the most common is stick lacquer. The usual way to get a presentation handle off is heat, as that is the way it got on. You can also cut of the handle then drill it out, which is more dangerous. I have also seen handles destroyed with heat as the handles were often lined with lead, which is a higher melting point than lacquer. If there is lead in a handle you can't use heat or repair it, as the lead puts holes in the gold of gold filled handles. My advice is don't buy canes with damaged handles, as the risk and expense is too great.
The good news is, because of all the things I just told you, you are going to fail more often than you will succeed when working on presentation canes. Cane handles were also soldiered together in multiple pieces, and when heat is used, they often come apart at the joints.
What is often possible to do, is take out dents in handles as long as they are not lined in lead. It is a difficult project, because you have to get it clean first then find someone who knows how to do that, and it's not easy.
Category: Presentation Canes
Sub Category: Other
Listed: 2006-11-20 01:16:23
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